The Queen's Reign, Season 1: Overview and Sign-Ups

The 2002 season of the J-Speed GT Masters marked the beginning of a new era for sports car racing. A direct result of the 1998 GT Racing Exodus, the top class J-Speed SUPER ONE regulations were developed with the goal of revitalizing a crippled GT endurance racing scene haunted by memories of machines far too powerful for any track at the time to contain. Alongside manufacturers Honda, Toyota, and Nissan, several major tuning houses would also shape the category into what it is today - most notable of them, the car culture superpower Garage House Tsuchigami. The SUPER ONE regulations would be adopted by top GT championships internationally in the years to follow, leaving J-Speed’s signature permanently scribed into the history of endurance racing worldwide. Based on super-modified everyday cars and technology, this time in motorsport history would be christened as the Superpowers Era.

Over the next few years, GT machines would become increasingly advanced, first becoming equipped with mundane driver assists such as anti-lock brakes and traction control and mechanical live-adjustable systems such as anti-roll bars. With technology advancing at an exponential pace came more intense innovations: experimental turbulent jet ignition (TJI) systems, flywheel hybrid energy storage (and ICE-electric hybrid cars with it), GPS-dependent auto-adjustable magnetic dampers, augmented reality helmets, and even AI tactical simulation assistants. The GT racing car of today is not simply a high-speed billboard for a major car company - it is an iconic weapon that embodies the teams’ greatest pride and ideals. These monstrous machines are part of what we know as the Augmented Era of racing which began in 2013 and continues to the present day.

Throughout the Superpowers and Augmented Eras, two major regional GT championships rose to power: the J-Speed GT Masters, a successor to the Japan Super Endurance Championship (JSEC), and the IMAS GT Championship, the spiritual revival of a beloved North American racing league of the same name from the 1980s TurboAero Era. Despite being completely isolated geographically, these two championships share many qualities: among them, an extremely loyal and prideful fanbase, origins in 1980s motorsport, and the constant wrestling between the image of a technological showcase and a pure-blooded sport for teams and drivers alike. Globalization, as well as an increasing crossover and convergence of regulations has resulted in an insatiable need among fans and teams to prove who is strongest once and for all. Winning Le Mans is no longer enough - now, the sights are set on the J-Speed GT Masters, the birthplace of GT racing as we know it today.

Ai Tsukishima, daughter of Japanese motorsport and team owner-driver legend Haruna “Drift Queen” Tsukishima, is known by her loyal subjects within the Tuner Kingdom as a superstar in her own right. Having won the GT Masters’ title for three straight years, the fan base crowned her the “Queen of GT Masters”. In 2016, she left the series to conquer the disciplines that formed the Tuner Trifecta to cement her place as the Kingdom’s greatest in Time Attack, Drifting, and Pro Touge. With new challengers from abroad looking to dethrone her, however, the new Queen must rise to the occasion and take what she believes is hers - a new GT Masters title reign, and an opportunity to take the Kingdom to Le Mans for the first time in years.